Today's issue of The Globe and Mail was delivered with CHIC, the magazine for Hôtels Boutique Le Germain and alt Hotels.
Like most magazines for airlines and hotels, its editorial is bilingual. Consequently the ads are also, for the most part, bilingual. And this often creates challenges for advertisers.
The magazine is filled with ads that adopted the obvious ‘split’ solution; a portion of the space for French and an equal portion for English.
That’s the case for Sun Life, Allstream and Deloitte among others. Note how French precedes English.
Others adopt the same approach but the English version precedes the French version.
Lacoste, the global apparel brand with French roots, chose to go English only.
Nespresso went with a French only headline and an asterisk to an English tagline buried under its URL.
The one that is most puzzling is for SWISS. The ad is in French with a smart headline that reads ‘Unfortunately. We have already arrived.”. The English slogan “Our sign is a promise” precedes the logo in what must be a complete brand visual signature. SWISS, like Nestle, another Swiss, also chose to use an asterisk to lead to the tiny line * Notre emblème est notre promesse.
It’s not easy being bilingual. Thank goodness for asterisks.
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